Director of Projects - Engagement Delivery Lead

Cognizant; California; Hybrid; USD 215,000 - 225,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance

Paid holidays and PTO

401(k) plan

Long-term/Short-term Disability

Paid Parental Leave

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Job summary

Cognizant in California is seeking a Chief Architect to guide enterprise AI and ML strategy across platforms. You will design scalable architectures for generative AI, ensure ethical AI usage, and align technology outcomes with long-term business goals.

You will lead architecture governance, define data flows, model lifecycles, and integration patterns, working with data scientists, engineers, and risk partners to deliver measurable customer and societal value.

Qualifications

• Twenty+ years designing large-scale enterprise architectures with AI/ML focus.
• Hands-on expertise in generative AI: architectures prompting, fine-tuning, deployment.
• Deep understanding of supervised/unsupervised learning and data prep for large datasets.
• Experience with AI platforms for experimentation, lifecycle management and monitoring.
• Proven ability to collaborate across data science, software, product and risk teams.
• Familiarity with responsible AI, fairness, transparency, privacy, and governance.
• Comfort working in hybrid, day-shift environments with modern collaboration tools.
• Experience in multinational organizations with regulatory/data residency needs.

Responsibilities

• Lead enterprise AI architecture embedding generative AI into core platforms to deliver scalable solutions.
• Create AI solution blueprints detailing data flows, lifecycles, and integration patterns.
• Oversee governance standards, design principles, and review processes for AI/ML systems.
• Provide guidance on generative AI models including selection, training, deployment, and bias evaluation.
• Translate analytical requirements into practical architectures that are maintainable and evolvable.
• Develop reference architectures for AI workloads including orchestration and monitoring.
• Evaluate new AI technologies and provide architecture recommendations for multinational environments.

Skills

Twenty+ years experience

Generative AI architectures

AI/ML governance

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

Job Summary

Serve as Chief Architect for enterprise grade artificial intelligence solutions in a hybrid work model guiding the strategic design and integration of generative AI and machine learning capabilities across complex business platforms. Apply deep expertise in AI and ML concepts to create scalable architectures that optimize performance reliability and ethical AI usage while aligning technology outcomes with long term organizational goals and measurable value for customers and communities.

Responsibilities

• Lead the end to end definition of enterprise wide artificial intelligence architecture that embeds generative AI and machine learning capabilities into core business platforms to deliver resilient and scalable solutions that advance strategic objectives and societal impact.
• Drive the creation of comprehensive AI solution blueprints that detail data flows model lifecycles inference services and integration patterns enabling product and engineering teams to implement consistent and reusable components across hybrid work environments.
• Oversee architectural governance for AI and ML systems by defining standards design principles and review processes that ensure technical robustness operational efficiency and ethical alignment with responsible artificial intelligence practices.
• Provide expert guidance on generative AI model selection training deployment and optimization ensuring that architectures support secure data handling controlled experimentation and transparent evaluation of model performance and bias.
• Coordinate closely with data science engineering security and business stakeholders to translate complex analytical requirements into practical AI architectures that can be maintained monitored and evolved within day shift operational constraints.
• Develop reference architectures and patterns for artificial intelligence workloads including model orchestration feature stores experiment tracking and monitoring so that teams can accelerate delivery while managing technical debt and long term maintainability.
• Evaluate emerging technologies frameworks and platforms in the AI and ML ecosystem and produce objective architectural recommendations that balance innovation risk cost and operational readiness for large multinational environments with no travel expectations.
• Guide the definition of non functional requirements for AI systems such as scalability latency reliability observability and compliance ensuring that generative AI solutions integrate smoothly with existing enterprise applications and data platforms.
• Collaborate on the design of data pipelines and model serving infrastructure that support robust training validation and inference workflows leveraging hybrid access patterns while maintaining data privacy and regulatory adherence.
• Support teams in documenting architectural decisions design rationales and operational guidelines so that AI platforms remain understandable auditable and adaptable for future enhancements and cross functional collaboration.
• Champion effective use of AI and ML concepts by mentoring teams on architecture best practices and by shaping reusable components that help products deliver measurable improvements in customer experiences and business outcomes.
• Review complex AI solution implementations and provide constructive architectural feedback that addresses security resilience performance and sustainability concerns without introducing unnecessary complexity or travel dependencies.
• Influence organizational roadmaps by articulating how generative AI and artificial intelligence capabilities can be responsibly scaled across markets thereby improving operational efficiency product personalization and social value through thoughtful technology choices.

Qualifications

• Bring extensive experience of at least twenty years in designing large scale enterprise architectures with a strong focus on applying artificial intelligence and machine learning concepts to real world business problems.
• Demonstrate advanced hands on expertise in generative AI including model architectures prompting techniques fine tuning approaches and deployment strategies across cloud native or on premises environments.
• Show deep understanding of core AI and ML foundations such as supervised and unsupervised learning model evaluation optimization techniques and data preparation practices relevant to complex organizational datasets.
• Apply practical knowledge of artificial intelligence platforms and tools used for experimentation model lifecycle management and monitoring while ensuring solutions remain secure robust and aligned with governance expectations.
• Exhibit strong experience collaborating with multidisciplinary teams including data scientists software engineers product owners and risk partners to turn conceptual AI initiatives into sustainable architectures and operational solutions.
• Possess familiarity with responsible AI principles including fairness transparency explainability and privacy and be able to embed these practices directly into architectural standards and design patterns.
• Demonstrate comfort working in a hybrid model and day shift context using modern collaboration tools and documentation practices to maintain architectural consistency and clear communication across distributed teams.
• Prefer experience with large multinational organizations where complex regulatory landscapes data residency considerations and high reliability expectations shape the overall design of AI platforms and solutions.

Salary And Other Compensation

The annual salary for this position is between $215,000 - $225,000 depending on experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate.

This position is also eligible for Cognizant’s discretionary annual incentive program, based on performance and subject to the terms of Cognizant’s applicable plans.

Benefits:

• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance
• Paid holidays plus Paid Time Off
• 401(k) plan and contributions
• Long-term/Short-term Disability
• Paid Parental Leave
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan